Analysis: Bush defends war as doubt spreads

By MARC SANDALOW, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Published
9:00 pm PST, Friday, March 17, 2006

A masked Iraqi Civil Defense Corp officer guards a checkpoint in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in this file photo. After more than 1,000 days of war and 2,312 U.S. deaths, most Americans say the war was a mistake.

A masked Iraqi Civil Defense Corp officer guards a checkpoint in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in this file photo. After more than 1,000 days of war and 2,312 U.S. deaths, most Americans say the war was a mistake.

Photo: / Associated Press

Photo: / Associated Press

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A masked Iraqi Civil Defense Corp officer guards a checkpoint in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in this file photo. After more than 1,000 days of war and 2,312 U.S. deaths, most Americans say the war was a mistake.

A masked Iraqi Civil Defense Corp officer guards a checkpoint in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in this file photo. After more than 1,000 days of war and 2,312 U.S. deaths, most Americans say the war was a mistake.

Photo: / Associated Press

Analysis: Bush defends war as doubt spreads

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WASHINGTON -- There was no ambiguity when President Bush declared three years ago that "the security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now."

In a prime-time address, Bush gave Saddam and his sons 48 hours to abandon their country, asserting that their weapons stockpile made it necessary to attack "before it is too late."

After more than 1,000 days of war, 2,314 U.S. deaths, more than a quarter of a trillion dollars spent and no end of turmoil in sight, most Americans say it was a mistake.

The doubt has spread to influential neo-conservatives who once pushed for a confrontation with Iraq, such as Johns Hopkins University professor Francis Fukuyama, who now says the war has spawned new terrorists, and Bush supporters such as William F. Buckley Jr., who wrote last month that "one can't doubt the objective in Iraq has failed."

Yet Bush expresses no more doubt today than he did in March 2003, insisting that taking out Saddam has made America safer, no matter the sacrifice to the country or the damage to his presidency.

"We have no doubt that the world is a better place for the removal of this dangerous and unpredictable tyrant, and we have no doubt that the world is better off if tyrants know that they pursue (weapons of mass destruction) at their own peril," reads a new "National Security Strategy" released Thursday by the White House.

Bush's confidence is in part the rhetoric of a commander in chief unwilling to display hesitancy with soldiers still risking life and limb.

In this case, it also seems to reflect Bush's post-Sept. 11 view of the world, in which terrorists pose a grave threat to the United States that cannot be ignored.

The president frequently tells audiences how he begins each day with a classified briefing that details ominous threats to the nation's security.

"My job is to see the world the way it is, not the way some would hope it would be," Bush said in Florida last month.

Defending the war grows more difficult with each casualty. Conservative estimates place the number of Americans wounded at 13,000 and the number of Iraqis killed above 30,000.

The financial drain on the country has been enormous, already amounting to about $1,000 for every man, women and child.

The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, developed a list of spending priorities that it argued would have better protected the United States, including $30 billion to secure nuclear material from theft, $24 billion to add two divisions to the Army, $7.5 billion to better protect ports and $7 billion to put 100,000 more police officers on the streets.

For Bush there has been a political cost that is impossible to calculate.

His inability to advance Social Security and other elements of his domestic agenda seems to have a direct relationship to the public's distaste for the war.

The January vote that brought millions of Iraqis to the polls was heralded as a triumph for democracy, but the daily violence has overshadowed such achievements and has left many wondering how the United States can withdraw its troops while providing a semblance of security.

Bush has increasingly turned his attention to confronting the growing domestic anxiety about a mission that is likely to define his place in history.

As critics portray him as stubborn, supporters characterize him as resolute even at his own political peril.

"Amid the daily news of car bombs and kidnappings and brutal killings, I can understand why many of our fellow citizens are now wondering if the entire mission was worth it," Bush said in his regular radio address last weekend.

In speech after speech, the answer from the president is an unambiguous yes.

The White House's continuing rationale for the war in Iraq begins with the assumption that Saddam was a threat to the United States, with or without nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. "This man was harboring terrorists. He was ... a state sponsor of terrorists," Bush told a crowd of supporters in Florida last month.

But Fukuyama and other scholars have warned that by invading Iraq, Bush created a "self-fulfilling prophecy."